For a while everything in Japan slowed down. The sensation of time passing over the last three weeks felt much longer, more like three months. It seems the earthquake was so large it affected our sense of time. But now everything is gaining speed, becoming normal, we are getting busy again, time is shortening and harder to find. I read an article today that claimed Japan will bounce back from this disaster with renewed vigour, “even stronger than before.” An even more productive and prosperous Japan! Finally a viable way out of the ’90s/’00s axis of economic ennui! Perhaps. Reconstruction is essential, but there are consequences from extending that reconstruction into renewed prosperity. The time-poor workers of Tokyo will be the first to suffer. Their time was already unnaturally scarce before the quake. In the future it may disappear completely. We will not know exact days or hours anymore, only fuzzy states: sleeping, working, eating, talking. As spare time for reflecting on the future vanishes Tokyo will be inhabited solely by workers with a “present perspective of time.” Psycho-Pharmeceudical companies will make a lot of money from “sense of time” medication which will be used to help rebuild the atrophy of timekeeping functions in the basal ganglia and the right parietal cortex. Photo of the Toei Shinjuku Line train gaining speed as it leaves Akebonobashi station bound for East Tokyo (which is where our new house is).